In 2007, Valve turned the gaming world on its head through the release of a strange side project called "Portal", wherein a player took part in an experiment conducted by an insane computer named GlaDOS to see if they could escape from a series of increasingly intricate and dangerous mazes while armed only with a teleportation gun that activated both an entry and exit portal.

Valve, creators of gaming staples such as Half-Life, Counter-Strike and the Steam digital storefront, announced on Monday that the company is now accepting pre-orders for Portal 2 via brick-and-mortar retailers, as well as through the Steam interface.

Special pre-order offers vary at participating outlets around the world and include a variety of dollars off and/or exclusive in-game content for those who reserve the game for purchase before it is released the week of April 18. These include $5 off the full price, exclusive in-game skins for the co-op bots (Atlas and P-body), and more.

Well, at least now you know what the box of the game you're going to be addicted to later this year will look like. On Tuesday, Valve Software released the official box art for its long-anticipated Portal 2 title.

We've been waiting for this all week. No, really. This teaser trailer shows off the cooperative gameplay abilities of the next Portal iteration. Players can play as different characters and will run through a different storyline than the single player portion of the game.

More details on Portal 2 will be released next week at PAX in Seattle, WA. Check out the video after the cut!

We're anticipating that this puzzler game is going to be as awesome as it's predecessor. And if these teaser images from Gamescom are any indication, we're confident that we won't be let down. All of the photos are from the single player version of Portal 2 and detail the game's beautiful graphics, as well as give a bit of insight into the game's rendering effects. Click the cut to take a look at the photos, and watch footage of Stephen Merchant as Wheatley and Portal 2's rendering effects in motion.

Portal 2 is slated for release February 9th, 2011 for the Mac, PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Apple has just released a Snow Leopard graphics update that fixes all of your video game woes.

The update contains stability and performance fixes that address the frame rate issues in Valve's Portal and Team Fortress 2, as well as an issue that causes Aperture 3 or StarCraft II to randomly quit or become unresponsive.

If you've been having issues with your favorite games for awhile now, this simple, 70MB update just might fix your problem.

While Steam on the Mac has only been out for a few weeks, many on the Mac|Life staff have fallen in love with the Valve game, Portal. Yesterday we got a glimpse at the Portal teaser trailer and today we have gameplay footage from E3.

Valve just showed E3 attendees an awesome teaser trailer for Portal 2. Too bad the game has been pushed back, beyond its regularly scheduled due date. Anyway, check out the teaser shown at Sony's E3 keynote. It's definitely something to look forward to in 2011.